Actually, I do
know – because, courtesy of a later mix recorded by a children’s choir, I now
know the lyrics – and, whoa, that’s one damn bleak little ditty. It’s about a
(possibly) dead actress and how nothing good happens on that particular block
(“there is no peach, there is no tree, on Peach Tree Street), which only makes
me like the music more. It’s airy stuff, and when the lighter guitar strains
ever higher through the bridge, it feels like the narrator (who, even in the
original, I picture as a kid) tries harder and harder to float away and forget
Peach Tree Street.

I suppose none
of the above belongs in the “backstory” for this track, per se, because I only
found that over this past week. And I’ve had “Peach Tree Street” on a Top 40 of
2016 since October of that year (NOTE: Top 40 included only the last quarter of
2016; just for perspective). When I create those Top 40s (still doing it, but
with no idea how to contain it), I’m usually paring down from three months’
worth of music, and with 40-60 songs for each month – and some of those pulled
from Bin Projects listens (see the list of volumes on the right sidebar), e.g., songs by artists I’m pretty high on from the
get-to. “Peach Tree Street” survived multiple cuts, so something about the song
spoke to me – and even before I knew the lyrics.

The Album

I live in this
utterly pointless fear that, one day, I’ll have to just totally shit on an
album, that, the one song that brought me to it aside, I’ll hate every last
word of every song, and even fractions of every note, even though the band
didn’t play those fractions. This site barely has an audience, but, y’know, the
internet, and what if feelings get hurt? I want creators to create, and I’m
willing to tolerate promising failure…just not hackery. Or naked commercialism.
Boundaries, people…

Even if Pop Or
Not never even spied that threshold from a distance – they play in a
style/genre I’m not hearing all over the place, so commercialism’s out - the
first couple listens left me indifferent. Whether it took getting used to the
songs, or just the right mood, I came around to a healthy portion of the songs
on the album – and, assuming I get there, this could wind up being one of
those…things, that skips over infatuation and ends with, oh, a solid five years
of marriage. I mean solid. After that, who knows? Right?

The genre/style
that Whyte Horses plays in (or near) made for the first hurdle. Someone,
somewhere (of which, not an easy thing to do, because this bunch has a small
footprint), classified them as psychedelic rock. I can’t check off a bunch of
artists/acts in my collection in re whom I’d immediately bark “psychedelic rock!”, so I guess, for reference, we’re talking acts like Frank Zappa(?), Strawberry
Alarm Clock (eh?), maybe a couple Jefferson Airplane tracks (right?), Brian
Wilson’s weirder shit for/outside/against The Beach Boys? I don’t know. The
point here is to highlight a lack of clear reference. Being the oldest step-son
of the Internet era, though, I googled that shit (“psychedelic rock”) and,
honestly, I came up with sound references up there. Some acts that came to mind
– e.g., The Birds, some Jimi Hendrix (“May This Be Love”) (and Count Five’s
“Psychotic Reaction”? (No, better.) Really? And no Zappa?), but all I really wanted to do
there was establish some small foundation of faith that I know what I’m talking
about. And, no, “psychedelic” doesn’t fit so well (again, “Psychotic Reaction”
feels closer to garage).

Whyte Horses
wears a whiff of an art-house/continental vibes about them. It’s not that they
don’t dabble in psychedelic tropes – listening to “She Owns The World” right
now and, yep, that has ‘em – but I’d put the album’s sonic genre/musical
mid-point on a song like “Elusive Mr Jimmy.” If you listen to that and hear
psychedelic, well…yeah, that’s fine. I don’t think any of us get prizes for
this shit or anything.

The band just
grew on me as the week progressed, and I think that’s down to their range and
the way it’s hard to pin them down musically. It’s a busy listen, and that’s
the kind of thing I like. For all that, I can’t imagine anyone but the most
super-humanly patient and open can like every song on Pop Or Not. Even after a
dozen listens, some songs won’t work for me – “Pop Or Not” and “The Other Half of the Sky” are personal stand-outs – and there’s enough spread on the other
stuff that I can see Pop Or Not turning off a meaningful cross-section of the
populace.

Before you walk away, Whyte Horses somehow conned something called the St. Bart’s Choir into
recording versions of all the songs on Pop Or Not. The result might not always
surpass the original, but it’s still fucking cute and accidentally sincere
(because, guileless; song's called "Snowfalls"). More to the point, those versions do Whyte Horses’ songs
a service by stripping them of the various effects. It took all of one listen
to…let’s call it the St. Bart’s Demo to goose a little more appreciation into
the next sit-down(s) with the studio album. (The versions of “Elusive Mr Jimmy”
and “She Owns the World” show just how smartly these
songs clean up.)

That doesn’t
take away from the lightly-removed ache in Julie Margat’s studio delivery. They
both come from different places (and Margat’s delivery makes more sense; I need
a little “squish,” so the choir), but part of the appeal of Whyte Horses’ music
comes with whatever makes it so flexible tonally. Or maybe I just like that
they reminded me of how much range any given set of notes and lyrics can really
have. Why not a psychedelic “Mary Had a Little Lamb”? (I mean besides how easy
it would be to slip into kitsch! How to do it well?!)

Maybe that’s too
much time dissecting the wrong things, I don’t know. Maybe I should just list
songs on these things and say “good” or “bad.” At any rate, this is a good
album. Moreover, some of its best tracks roll in a totally different direction
from the songs listed above – e.g., to name several favorites, “Astrologie Siderale,” “When I Was a Scout,” “La Couleur Orignelle,” and “Promise I Do” (again, psychedelic; totally does happen).
And, if you listen to them, you’ll hear the some tonal center – astral, cool
(as relates to temperature, not taste), and somehow still bright – but...going with a clearly different set styles and tempos.

On the way to
nailing down some frames in the above, I read a coupleposts on Whyte Horses.
They’re interesting enough, so there’s more to learn for those willing to read
a little more. All in all, my goal here isn’t to judge what people are doing,
so much as describe it and give it some context (i.e., name-dropping
acts/artists and songs), so anyone reading it can walk away with some interest
or otherwise about giving that band a try. Sure, whether I liked it or not
comes in. That’s also the least important thing I’m doing here.

At any rate, and
again, Whyte Horses do good work. If you like psychedelic rock, and acts like,
say, April March, Air, maybe a taste of Velvet Underground and, here’s a weird
one, Beach House (now that I think of it, Whyte Horses could really be Beach
House mixed with 2-3 more artists a couple steps faster than Beach House).